Everyday Things

The Plimsouls... Everyday Things (.mp3 audio 02:28). From the album The Plimsouls (1981, Planet Records P-13).

Loren Holland: The Virtues of Vice

Loren Holland: The Virtues of Vice at Anna Kustera Gallery in New York. "...In these recent works, Holland uses oil paint on paper to depict highly enigmatic female figures, exploiting the media’s hyper-sexualized, self-assured images of femininity. By distorting the usual connotations of these images, her brightly colored works examine themes of depravity and excess, and how vices and hedonistic mistakes can, in fact, contribute to new knowledge and understanding."

Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156–1868

Sashimono (Personal Flag) of Sakakibara Yasumasa (Momoyama period, 17th century, Silk and gold leaf, Tokyo National Museum, Important Cultural Property). From the exhibition Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156–1868 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "...Drawn entirely from public and private collections in Japan, the majority of objects date from the rise of the samurai in the late Heian period, ca. 1156, through the early modern Edo period, ending in 1868, when samurai culture was abolished. The martial skills and daily life of the samurai, their governing lords, the daimyo, and the ruling shoguns will also be evoked through the presence of painted scrolls and screens depicting battles and martial sports, castles, and portraits of individual warriors."

Guess I'm Dumb

Glen Campbell... Guess I'm Dumb (1965, Capitol 5441 .mp3 audio 02:41). Written and produced by Brian Wilson.

Drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau

Lens Culture... Drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau - photographs and captions by Marco Vernaschi. "...Vernaschi's hard-hitting reporting on the consequences of cocaine trafficking in the small West African country of Guinea-Bissau is at once riveting, shocking, profoundly disturbing, and impossible to forget.
He began his long-term project, West Africa's New Achilles' Heel, in order to document the major illegal activities behind international terrorism. His work on cocaine trafficking has the overall goal of showing how unaware consumers in the West are that they support terrorism." More... Works by Marco Vernaschi at his personal site.

Aya Takada - from Fragrance: Midnight

Japan Exposures... Aya Takada - from Fragrance: Midnight. "...Aya Takada was born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1973. She studied photography at Tokyo School of Visual Arts and graduated in 1994. In the late 1990s she produced her own large format art photo magazine, named AREA. She was a member of Galeria Q from 1998 to 2005. During that period she exhibited her photos numerous times, and multiple times under the Fragrance theme."

Everybody Wants A Cowboy

Skeeter Davis & NRBQ... Everybody Wants A Cowboy (.mp3 audio 02:29). From the album She Sings, They Play (1985, Rounder Records).

Try It

The Standells... Try It (1967, .mp3 audio 03:02)

Vampira

Bobby Bare... Vampira (1958 Jackpot 48010 .mp3 audio 03:10). From WFMU's Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban!

Shinya Tsukamoto is ready for his extreme close-up, Mr. deMille!

Twitch Film... Shinya Tsukamoto is ready for his extreme close-up, Mr. deMille!. "...We all know and love Shinya Tsukamoto for being one of the most exciting directors working today. It helps that he isn't afraid to create genre movies, that he frequently manages to transcend those genres and that he has a wicked sense of humor.
But Tsukamoto-San is also a very accomplished actor, able to play both nice and creepy roles with seemingly no effort whatsoever. His very recognizable face can be admired in many a great film, whether he is the director or not."

Moods of the Sea

Slavko Vorkapich... Moods of the Sea (1941, with John Hoffman) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...Moods of the Sea is a non-narrative visual(1941) film by Slavko Vorkapich and John Hoffman (1904-1980), set to the music of Felix Mendelssohn known as the Hebrides (or Fingal's Cave) Overture. This 10-minute-long film has become well known as an early example of American avant-garde and independent film."

Beware the Cost of War

Beware the Cost of War. London, 23 - 29 October.

I Shop: Communist Era Store Windows

I Shop: Communist Era Store Windows by David Hlynsky. "...Between 1986 and 1990, I made approximately 8,000 color, Hasselblad images on the streets of Communist Europe. I purposely avoided dramatic moments and newsworthy events. In a cityscape without commercial seduction, banality seemed to signify everything. At first I was interested in simple pedestrian traffic. Later I doggedly documented store windows. These seemed to signify the real difference between East and West. Without the garish ad campaigns of the West, these streets felt more neutral... devoid of trumped up and pumped up urgency."

Kyle

Happy Birthday to my son Kyle - 12 years old today.

Trucker From Tennessee

Link Davis... Trucker From Tennessee (1956, Starday 255 .mp3 audio 02:08).

Barbara Crane: Private Views - Public Spaces

Barbara Crane: Private Views - Public Spaces at Stephen Daiter Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...An in-depth look at a deliciously colored and daringly intimate group of 4 x 5 Polaroid's made between 1980 and 1984. To obtain these, the undaunted artist prowled the lakefront and outdoor festivals seeking to capture and redefine the language of human connection. Faces play their crucial roles but Crane often gives equal or greater weight to the dialogues of other parts of the body - the dance of arms, legs and especially hands with their probing fingers – all conversing with mute eloquence in the public square."

Michael Light - Full Moon: The Apollo Missions

Michael Light - Full Moon: The Apollo Missions at Joseph Bellows Gallery. "...From 1963 – 1972 NASA's Apollo program landed six missions on the moon and yielded a wealth of scientific data as well as 32,000 photographs. From 1995-2000, photographer Michael Light worked with NASA's archives to revisit and reexamine these photographs. Light's project culminated in a book and museum exhibition entitled FULL MOON. The book was published in six languages in 1999 (the American by Knopf, New York), and the museum exhibition opened concurrently that summer at London's Hayward Gallery and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The photographs from that show are now on permanent display at the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space in Manhattan. In the years since, FULL MOON has come to be considered the definitive visual statement on the Apollo photographic archive."

Rocaterrania

Rocaterrania - a film by Brett Ingram. "...Rocaterrania is a feature length documentary exploring the secret world of scientific illustrator and visionary artist Renaldo Kuhler.
In the last four decades, seventy-six-year-old Renaldo Kuhler has created hundreds of plates for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, illustrating diverse flora and fauna for obscure scientific journals and reference books. Before the making of this documentary, no one knew that Kuhler is also a prolific visionary artist."

Lips Were Redder On You

Gene Pitney... Lips Were Redder On You (1964, Musicor 1039 .mp3 audio 02:18). Written by Joe Meek.

Boys Beware

Boys Beware (1961, Sid Davis Productions). "...Anti-homosexual film targeted at teenage boys, urging them to avoid encounters with potential molesters."

Frank Kozik: Hubris

Frank Kozik... Big Kandy (Fiberglass, House of Color Kandy & Metal flake painted Mixed media sculpture). From the exhibition Frank Kozik: Hubris at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Culver City, CA.

Works by Michael Patterson-Carver

Michael Patterson-Carver... The Battle for America (2009, Ink and pencil on paper). From the Works by Michael Patterson-Carver at Small A Projects. "...Michael Patterson-Carver’s drawings are a candid and direct look at the political realm, dividing into two distinct genres: those that represent well-known world leaders and power mongers, and others that represent ordinary men and women, working for change through direct action and demonstrations. The latter are always gently smiling, standing shoulder to shoulder, their collective mass filling the picture plane, topped by placards voicing their demands, hopes and desires. They smile because, according to Patterson-Carver, they are quite sure of their success."

Sebastiaan Bremer: Panta Rei

Sebastiaan Bremer: Panta Rei at BravinLee Programs in New York. "...An integration of artistic practices, Bremer reinforces the separate aesthetics of drawing and photography by applying paint to the surface of photographs, creating an ethereal atmospheric shimmering skein over a semi-representational photo-based image. The organic networks of pointillist dots and linear graphic activity intermingle with the photographic ground in a dreamy in-between condition.
Roberta Smith wrote in The New York Times about Bremer’s work, 'They charge the atmosphere and thicken the plot, sometimes almost beyond recognition, creating the effect of wind currents across images of trees or filling domestic interiors with hints of playful sprites or veils of Havisham-like cobwebs.'" More... Works by Sebastiaan Bremer at his personal site.

50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain

Ten Years After... 50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain (.mp3 audio 07:39). From the album Cricklewood Green (1970, Deram SML 106).

Cutters: An Exhibition of International Collage

Cutters: An Exhibition of International Collage at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. "...Cutters showcases a variety of contemporary collage from North America and Europe. The selected artists range from young google-image searchers to collage veterans with roots in the 70s punk scene. Each one has a unique vision and exciting visual vocabulary that includes collections of images sorted and stacked, layered and glued, cut to pieces and ripped apart."

Musa Nxumalo: Alternative Kidz

Musa Nxumalo: Alternative Kidz at Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town. "...First popularised in predominately western capitalist societies in the 1970s and 1980s, punk culture was characterised by a rejection of commercialism and political idealism. Today, however, alternative culture has largely been absorbed into mainstream society; it is no longer largely associated with anarchism, radical politics, and a rejection of social values and norms. Nxumalo's exhibition raises questions about the nature of (intentioned) cultural divergence and the status of contemporary subjectivities, particularly in relation to the emergence of new urban cultures and dynamics. Nxumalo says that he hopes this project will 'encourage cultural exploration among young South Africans.'"

Works by Lisette Model

Works by Lisette Model at the Fundación Mapfre in Madrid. (es)

Who Does Lisa Like?

Rachel Sweet... Who Does Lisa Like? (.mp3 audio 03:02). From the album Fool Around (1978, Stiff Records SEEZ 12). Lene Lovich on backing vocals.

Darger - Orphans Of The Storm

Henry Darger... Profitable Day for a Lost Child (Detail) (Henry Darger Room Collection, Intuit: the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, gift of Kiyoko Lerner). From Darger - Orphans Of The Storm. "...'Darger' tells the story of the amazing discovery of Henry Darger's secret world of writings, paintings, objects and collections, created and collected over decades in his one room apartment in Chicago: apocalyptic visions of an imaginary war-torn planet in which children are pursued and enslaved by a race of evil adults.
Darger died unmourned in 1973 and was buried in a pauper's grave. As far as anyone knew, he had led an anonymous and isolated life, doing so-called menial jobs in hospitals on the north side of Chicago. This documentary charts Darger's journey from obscurity to what the New York Times has called his 'almost van Gogh-like mythic stature.'"

Works by Arja Hyytiäinen

Works by Arja Hyytiäinen at Agence VU. "...'Completely contemporary, free and demanding, the work of Arja Katarrina Hyytiäinen is part of the today’s school, from the tradition of the street photography, and that has replaced its form to claim the author status. Saying its necessity and its singularity, devoting itself to subjectivity, and influenced by cinematographic aesthetic, the whole work, extremely respectful for representing people, is from a new contemporary humanism', underlines Christian Caujolle."

Interview with Ivan Vartanian

Japan Exposures... Interview with Ivan Vartanian. "...Ivan Vartanian is an author, editor, and book producer who has been based in Tokyo since 1997. Later this month, two publications will get added to a growing list of books he has been involved with: Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s and Yasuzo Nojima: Modern Photography. Ivan has also written, co-authored, and edited numerous illustrated books on art, photography, and design, including Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers and Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku Street Style – Tokyo. His company is Goliga Books. I recently sat down with Ivan in Harajuku to talk about his latest books and ask him about his other publications over the last few years."

Beirut Outtakes

Peggy Ahwesh... Beirut Outtakes (2007) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...Composed entirely of film scraps salvaged from a closed Beirut cinema, Beirut Outtakes is a collage of sensational visions. Ed Halter writes in the Village Voice: 'Outtakes appears to be a ready-made, albeit one tailor-made for Ahwesh's career obsessions, pre-filled with her signature elements: gleeful disruptions of high and low, affection for decayed textures, a peeping eye for lurid sexuality, and a fascination with unlikely images of the Middle East. Just one sequence of a go-go-booted belly dancer wriggling in an Arabic-language cinema advertisement for home air conditioners alone has the power to shatter more stereotypes than 500 pages of Edward Said.'" More... Works by Peggy Ahwesh at Video Data Bank.

Anna Voitenko: The Willow Village Iza

Anna Voitenko: The Willow Village Iza at Still Dancing. "...The old and large village Iza is located in a wide plain among Carpathian ridges. It is well-known because all its residents, the local priest and policeman included, are engaged in withe wickerwork. Instead of carrots, cabbages, and potatoes, they grow willows on their plots of land. For the whole year, they carefully look after the plant, earthing it up, and keeping it wet (which makes withe firmer, whiter, and more flexible). Then in the spring, during the Orthodox holiday of Holy Protection, they go and cut the harvest it down to the last twig. The entire village, from kids to elders, goes out for withe cutting. Even 80-year olds do not stay at home working equally with the others." More... Works by Anna Voitenko at her personal site.

Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century

Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century, "...This digital collection presents promotional performers circulars (publicity brochures), musical and spoken word recordings, and programs drawn from the Records of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, the largest booking agency for circuit Chautauqua, an enterprise that between 1904 and 1932 brought together under the canvas of large tents thousands of performers and lecturers and millions of small town residents across the United States."

Civilian Public Service Periodicals - Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Civilian Public Service Periodicals - Swarthmore College Peace Collection. "...During World War II, conscientious objectors (C.O.s) to war were offered an alternative option to military service. C.O.s who selected alternative service were assigned to Civilian Public Service (CPS).camps or units across the United States. In over 150 camps these men engaged in such work as forestry, farming, the building of sanitary facilities for hook-worm ridden communities, fighting fires, serving as human guinea pigs for medical and scientific research, and taking care of the mentally ill. In many of the camps/units, magazines or newsletters were published describing the work and activities of the C.O.s who lived in them. These periodicals were written and illustrated by the CPS men themselves."

Brooklyn In Late September

The Afflicted Yard... Brooklyn In Late September - photographs by Peter Dean Rickards.

Brenda Ann Kenneally - Upstate Girls: What Became of Collar City

Brenda Ann Kenneally - Upstate Girls: What Became of Collar City (Digital Journalist, October 2009). "...As a journalist and activist I have dedicated my life to exploring the how and why of class inequity in America. I am concerned with the internalized social messages that will live on for generations after our economic and social policies catch up with the reality of living on the bottom rung of America's upwardly mobile society. My project explores the way that money is but a symptom of self-worth and a means by which humans separate from each other. Poverty is an emotional rather than physical state with layers of marginalization to cement those who live under them into their place. The economic crisis as it is called has done some to take the moral sting out of being poor, though the conversation remains centered on economic rather than social stimulus relief. Thus indicating that the crux of the crisis is for those that are recently without money rather than Americans whose ongoing struggles left them unfazed by the headlines."

Walking On A Wire

Richard & Linda Thompson... Walking On A Wire (.mp3 audio 05:28). From the album Shoot Out The Lights (1982, Hannibal Records HNBL-1303).

Invasion Of The Bee Girls

Invasion Of The Bee Girls (1973, directed by Denis Sanders, Flash Video 1:26:28). "...A powerful cosmic force is turning Earth women into queen bees who kill men by wearing them out sexually."

Money Honey

Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters... Money Honey (1953, Atlantic 1006 .mp3 audio 02:58).

After The Fire

Lost Art... After The Fire. "...Ontem a noite vimos o incêndio na favela do Jaguaré e hoje pela manhã decidimos visitar o local para documentar a situação dos moradores após o ocorrido.
Encontramos uma situação muito triste, em pleno dia das crianças, com inúmeras famílias que perderam tudo e não tinham para onde ir.
Caso você esteja em São Paulo, e tenha algo sobrando, não custa tentar ajudar. Roupas, alimentos, (e brinquedos para as crianças) são muito bem-vindos." (br)

'T'aint Whatcha Do | Daddy Daddy

Ella Mae Morse... 'T'aint Whatcha Do (ca. early 50's .mp3 audio 02:57) and... Daddy Daddy (ca. early 50's .mp3 audio 02:40). From the album Barrelhouse, Boogie And The Blues (1997, Bear Family B000001B55).

Picture of Fate: I Am But a Fisherman Who Angles In the Darkness of His Mind

Takashi Murakami... Picture of Fate: I Am But a Fisherman Who Angles In the Darkness of His Mind (Installation video) at Gagosian Gallery. "...In this new work, Murakami depicts the legend of the Karajishi or "China-lion", the mythological animal that guards the thresholds of Japanese Buddhist temples, separating sacred precincts from secular areas, averting evil, and promoting happiness and joy. Representations of lions were produced first by Chinese, and then Japanese, artists based on versions from India and Assyria that had been assimilated into Buddhist iconography, without the real animal ever having been seen. Thus these depictions of the exotic animal became increasingly fanciful. The Karajishi was a chosen subject of Shohaku Soga (1730-1781), the prominent iconoclast who mixed Zen and Chinese styles with wilder, virtuoso brushwork and equal measures of irreverent wit and inventiveness and whose interpretations of the Zen Buddhist ascetic Daruma, another famous outsider, were a key inspiration for Murakami's 2007 series."

Andy Warhol: Ladies and Gentlemen

Andy Warhol: Ladies and Gentlemen at Skarstedt Gallery in New York, NY. "...This exhibition is comprised of nineteen paintings and seven drawings and represents some of the most interesting portraits Warhol created while also depicting Warhol’s acute awareness of the modernizing and liberalizing world around him.
Unlike the portraits commissioned by socialites and celebrities, Warhol paid these sitters to pose in front of his camera. In a statement made by Vincent Freemont about the sitters he says, 'Bob Colacello found most of them at a club called the Gilded Grape. After the photo session, I would hand the subjects a model release and a check and send them over to the bank.' The cross-dressers were invited to pose and dress as they wished while Warhol took their portraits with his Polaroid Big Shot camera, the same process he used with the Hollywood starlets and socialites. The photographs were then sent to a commercial silkscreen shop where they were transferred onto the silk or silk-like fabric and then returned to Warhol for printing. These paintings are glamorous and feminine, and mimic the celebrity status of his other portraits."

Josh Gosfield: Gigi Gaston - The Black Flower

Josh Gosfield... Strip: Nieuwe Teenager-Ster (1963, Archival pigment, printed 2009). From the exhibition Josh Gosfield: Gigi Gaston - The Black Flower at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York. "...Josh Gosfield has assembled the definitive archive devoted to the 1960s French pop star Gigi Gaston. Gigi’s music and the spectacle of her tragic life riveted the public through the 60s and 70s. The exhibition documents her life and loves with archival photographs, posters, record covers, magazine and newspaper articles, a music video shot by Jean Luc Godard, documentary footage, and assorted ephemera. We see her Gypsy family’s escape from Bulgaria, her affair with her stepbrother, her first guitar, her rise up (and fall down) the charts, the car crashes, funerals, love triangles and the murder trial. All this played out in a garish media spotlight before the insatiable eyes of her public." Looks to be one of the more inventive collection of works.

Tatsumi Hijikata: Natsu No Arashi

Tatsumi Hijikata: Natsu No Arashi (aka Summer Storm, 1973, Director / Editor: Arai Misao) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...A Summer Storm by Hijikata Tatsumi primarily consists of the legendary Japanese dancer Hijikata Tatsumi's legendary performance shot in Kyoto in 1973, and is a tribute to this extraordinary talent. Now, thirty years later, it is still funny, sad, and infinitely gripping. Hijikata was the pioneer of the reputed Butoh dance. Butoh, performed in slow, unique movements by dancers, with their bodies painted white and bent-forward, is an antithesis of the traditional Western dance. As the only remaining footage in color of his performance, the film shows Hijikata as an eternal punker, rebel, and sufferer."

Jailhouse Rock

Judy Nylon & Crucial... Jailhouse Rock (.mp3 audio 03:48). From the album Pal Judy (1982, On-U Sound ON-U LP 16).

Napoleonic Satires

Napoleonic Satires at the Brown University Library Center for Digital Initiatives. "...A collection of Napoleonic satirical prints produced between 1792 and 1829, from Germany, Britain, France, Holland, and Russia, by such noted artists as James Gillray and George Cruikshank."

Earl Boykins, Dan Colen, Mike Mills, Edward McTavish & Athena Razo Walk into a Bar

Earl Boykins, Dan Colen, Mike Mills, Edward McTavish & Athena Razo Walk into a Bar at Fuse Gallery in New York.

Zipper Head Boogie

Ming & Ling... Zipper Head Boogie (ca. 1950's .mp3 audio 01:42). From The Hound - June 29, 1991.

Heidi Johansen

Little Sculptures by Heidi Johansen. Photographs too.

Fotografías Mínimas

Lens Culture... Fotografías Mínimas - photographs by Leandro Piñeiro, review by Kate Stanworth. "...Fotografías Mínimas is a simple and understated, independently published book of black and white street photography by Argentine photographer Leandro Piñeiro. During two separate periods in 2002 and 2007, Piñeiro stalked the busy downtown avenues of Buenos Aires, snapping passers-by literally 'from the hip' without looking through the viewfinder or arousing attention." More... Works by Leandro Piñeiro on Flickr.

Fight Smack In The Orphanage

Ding Dong Roar - with special guest Black Dynamite (QuickTime Video). From Fight Smack In The Orphanage - Because Orphans Don't Have Parents. "...Fight Smack in the Orphanage (FSITO) was founded to combat the relentless plague of Smack, Junk, hopelessness, China White, disinterest and/or apathy, and Mexican Mud in American orphanages. Our motto: We care to fight because we fight to care."

5:30

DNA... 5:30 (.mp3 audio 01:09). From the EP A Taste Of DNA (1981, American Clavé AMCL1003 EP).

Skarabej - Online Museum of Old Family Photographs

Skarabej - Online Museum of Old Family Photographs. "...We found most of the photographs which you can see rejected, forgotten or lost at flea markets, old attics, in basements or junk heaps in Prague (Cz), Zagreb (Cro), Travnik (BiH) and in Subotica (SiCg). Smaller ammount has been given to us as a gift or ceded for scanning by our friends or acquaintances. We are still looking for new photographs..."

Belina Mon Amour

Orchestre Hi-Fives... Belina Mon Amour (ca. 1960's, EMI Pathé 2 C 006 15046 .mp3 audio 03:05). "...Initially known as Bana Kibushi Batano, the band was formed in Lubumbashi by Vicky Numbi. In 1965, the band moved to Kigoma, Tanzania. It was there that the band received their new name – Hi-Fives – from an American Catholic priest. Two years later, they came Kenya to join fellow Congolese musician Pascal Onema, and Zambians Nashil Pitchen and Peter Tsotsi, who were with the Equator Sounds Band in Nairobi.
Orchestre Hi-Fives are credited for creating the Mpete wa Kibushi style which became very popular in Kenya. The band recorded over a dozen singles and at least three albums. After the break up of the band, Vicky Numbi joined Orchestra Super Mazembe, who were active up until the 1990s." From Radiodiffusion Internasionaal Annexe.

Ryan Trecartin - 10 Videos (2001-2009)

Ryan Trecartin - 10 Videos (2001-2009) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...Ryan Trecartin's videos depict a vertiginous world I'm barely stable enough to describe. Watching them, I face the identity-flux of Internet existence: surfing-as-dwelling. Images evaporate, bleed, spill, metamorphose, and explode. Through frenetic pacing, rapid cuts, and destabilizing overlaps between representational planes (3-D turns into 2-D and then into 5-D), Trecartin violently repositions our chakras. Digitally virtuoso, his work excites me but also causes stomach cramps. I'm somatizing. But I'm also trying to concentrate." - Wayne Koestenbaum

Wawa

Lizzy Mercier Descloux... Wawa (.mp3 audio 02:24). (From the album Press Color (1979, ZE Records ZEA 33-004).

Christian Poveda: La Vida Loca

Christian Poveda: La Vida Loca (40 black & white photographs) at Zone Zero. "...In San Salvador, two gangs, The Mara Salvatrucha and the Mara 18, have been confronting each other for years on a war without end.
Over 14,000, long forgotten, young men express their rebelliousness through tattooing their bodies and swearing complete devotion to their clan, a group that substitues family.
Sons of violence; they are the heirs of the gangs that first originated in the US during the 80's and were conformed by immigrant Salvadoreños who had fled the civil war.
Born in the Los Angeles ghetto, the legend of the Maras gains strength in Central America with the return of the refugees and illegal deported aliens."

Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video

Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video. "...The Triennial is ICP's signature exhibition: a global survey of the most exciting and challenging new work in photography and video. The only recurring U.S. exhibition specializing in international contemporary photography and video, the Third Triennial will mark the closing cycle of ICP's 2009 Year of Fashion, a series of projects that critically examine fashion and its relationship to art and other cultural and social phenomena. Through the lens of fashion—in its broadest conception—the Triennial will look at the proliferation of photo- and video-based work exploring the uses of style, image, and personal presentation."

Late Bloomer's Go Shibata Returns With Doman Seman

Twitch Film... Late Bloomer's Go Shibata Returns With Doman Seman (includes trailer). "...Not technically a 'return' as he has completed another film between this one and his break out Late Bloomer, but Japanese indie director Go Shibata has been largely off the radar in recent years. But he's coming back with Doman Seman, a film that looks to take his trademark indie style and fixation with loud (and good) music in some different directions. Nobody really seems to know exactly what this one is about yet other than that it involves supernatural forces that appear obviously occult in origin, based on the trailer, but the idea of Go moving in this direction is honestly every bit as exciting to me as it would be if Sion Sono or other directors of that ilk were to travel this particular road."

You Make No Sense

ESG... You Make No Sense (.mp3 audio 02:20). From the album Come Away With ESG (1983, 99 Records 99-003 LP).

KOKESHI: From Folk Art to Art Toy

KOKESHI: From Folk Art to Art Toy at the Japanese American National Museum. More at the Los Angeles Toy, Doll & Amusements Museum. "...Casting a fresh eye on the iconic and ubiquitous Japanese folk toy, KOKESHI is organized into three sections. First up: an overview of tradition, exploring the origins and history of the iconic folk toys known as kokeshi. On display will be over 200 breathtaking examples of traditional kokeshi dolls from the extensive collection of Itske and Anthony Stern."

Guerillère Talks

Guerillère Talks (1978, directed by Vivienne Dick). "...Vivienne Dick's arrival in 70s New York, landed her in the middle of the punk era. Fresh from Ireland and having no experience of making films, she signed up for a course and took up residence on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, right in the middle of a punk revolution. This first film uses eight rolls of Kodak sound Super-8 film to profile each woman in real time and without any editing. Each is captured on film in a screentest to which the camera is co-conspirator rather than voyeur, reacting as opposed to recording. The 'subjects' include Pat Place and Adele Bertei, former band members of the Contortions, as well as Lydia Lunch, singer, guitarist, film-star and punk doyenne who would also appear in later films. The women talk, read letters, play pinball, while the camera zooms in and out using oblique framing. Made in the second wave of New York avant-garde film, after the intense scrutiny of film by structuralist filmmakers, Dick's films use the 'every-dayness' of Super-8 with choppy hand-held shots and a home-movie style ethic, to explore the self-image and social politics of a diverse group of women in 1970s New York." From LUX.

A Political Contradictionary from A to Z

A Political Contradictionary from A to Z at Graphic Witness. "...Most of the decorative initial letters come from 1851 issues of Punch. Often, John Tenneil is the illustrator. His characteristic signature is found in the Letter A. The author William Makepeace Thackery also did illustration work, both for his own books and for Punch. He drew the Letter C. The Letter Q, c. 1451 illustrates a knotty contradiction: two knights engage in battle, but it is the unarmed serfs who are trampled under the horses hooves in the process, an early example of 'collateral damage.'"

Can't Be Funky

Bush Tetras... Can't Be Funky (1981, Fetish Records FE 15 .mp3 audio 02:43).

Sound Storm: Wisconsin's First Outdoor Rock Festival

Sound Storm: Wisconsin's First Outdoor Rock Festival at the WHS. "...Sound Storm, Wisconsin's first outdoor rock festival, was held April 24-26, 1970, on the hillside farm of Irene York, outside the village of Poynette in Columbia County. The driving force behind Sound Storm was Pete Obranovich, better known at the time as Pete Bobo, and his friends Sandy Nelson and Bob Pulling (who took the featured photographs). Using the name Golden Freak Enterprises, Pete raised capital, signed three dozen bands, licensed vending and concession rights, hired a stage crew and sound engineers, and promoted Sound Storm coast to coast. Madison attorneys John Hanson, Roger Schnitzler and Jack Van Metre triumphed over local governments who were determined to block the festival."

The Abstracted Landscape

The Abstracted Landscape - works by Peter Bialobrzeski, Stephane Couturier, DoDo Jin Ming, and Toshio Shibata at Laurence Miller Gallery. "...These four photographers each translate the landscape into a poetic and abstract vision, utilizing techniques and processes unique to photography to create scenes that remain sufficiently recognizable yet unobtainable through the naked eye. Peter Bialobrzeski, in his series Lost in Transition, photographs rapid urbanization and industrialization by taking very long exposures, which create other-worldly colors and lighting not visible to the naked eye. Stephane Couturier embraces the camera’s monocularity in his series from Havana to flatten our normal reading of space and render totally ambiguous the walls of a decaying interior. DoDo Jin Ming, in her series Behind My Eyes, applies the technique of negative printing to render mysterious and foreboding fields of sunflowers. And Toshio Shibata wields his large view camera, with multiple tilts and swings, to look straight down the side of a dam, creating a vertigo-inducing viewpoint we would be unable (and perhaps unwilling) to see directly with our own eyes."

Barbara Golden: At The Corner of Alive and Jesus

Barbara Golden: At The Corner of Alive and Jesus (1988, Self released cassette, San Francisco) at UbuWeb Sound. "...'At The Corner Of Alive And Jesus: A Cantata', as it was first called, was premiered in San Francisco in 1987, with the following performers: William Winant (percussion), Sarah Willner (viola, vocals), Barbara Golden (narration, keyboards), Mary Oliver (violin), Laetitia de Compiegne & Sheila Davies (vocals), Miguel Frasconi (pan pipes), Larry Polansky (guitar). Robert Ashley hadn't joined yet, apparently. Barbara Golden (b. 1941 Montréal, Canada) graduated from Mills College in 1982, studying with Robert Ashley, Terry Riley, Maggi Payne and Lou Harrison. The wonderful gamelan music of the latter probably led her to join the Gamelan Sekar Jaya orchestra with which she still performs to this day. She also plays in bands WIGband, & Shroomy.com and host a radio show called 'Crack o' Dawn' on KPFA, San Francisco."

Killer Klowns From Outer Space

The Dickies.... Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988, Enigma Records D1-73322 .mp3 audio 04:28). Also... the Trailer for Killer Klowns From Outer Space (Flash Video 01:51).

31 Days of Horror VI

31 Days of Horror VI at Not Coming To A Theater Near You.

Silent Moan: Photographs by Michael Donnor

Silent Moan: Photographs by Michael Donnor at Soulcatcher Studio. "...Donnor works in the traditional wet darkroom method. The process begins with the negative; the decision of how to destroy it and decay it is about looking further than when the shutter was released. He manipulates each film negative using a number of techniques to further convey the concept of each image; including freezing, melting, scratching, cutting and re-taping to name a few. Once the negative is finished, the control of depth of field is done through the enlarger, allowing the choice in each print of where the focus will be. The finished gelatin silver print photographs are then toned in tea and selenium and signed, titled, dated and editioned in ink using the artist's own hand-lettering technique. The paper edges are then burned and encaustic is applied in layers, finishing each piece from conception to print. They are one of a kind within an edition; from the tones to the lettering, burning and encaustic finish. No two prints are the same."

Hiroshi Watanabe

Hiroshi Watanabe at Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...Quiet, thoughtful and unassuming are words often used when describing images made by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Watanabe. Whether photographing a lone child atop a jungle gym-like structure, a shadow of the Washington Monument perfectly draped upon the Vietnam War Memorial, or the simplicity of a lace wedding glove, Watanabe proves time and again that when a photographer is patient, beauty and opportunity reveals itself in everyday events."

The Ninth Floor by Jessica Dimmock

The Ninth Floor by Jessica Dimmock. "...In 2004, anywhere from 20 to 30 young addicts lived on the ninth floor of an elegant narrow building overlooking Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The squatters had turned the sprawling apartment into a dark, desperate and chaotic place.
People hustled, scored, shot and smoked wherever they could. Friends conned each other for their next hit. They slept on piles of clothes on the floor. The power was shut off; the bathroom unusable; the kitchen filled with garbage. Anything of value was sold off.
For nearly three years, Jessica Dimmock followed this crew documenting what happened to them after eviction, how they fought to get clean, sank deeper into addiction, went to jail, started families and struggled to survive."

55 Years Ago

Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill... Blue Moon Of Kentucky (1954, Sun 209 .mp3 audio 02:04). EP's first and only appearance at the Grand Ole Opry was on October 2, 1954 - 55 years ago today.

New Minotaur Series

Simon Larbalestier... New Minotaur Series. "...A series of works for the Pixies Minotaur project."

Futatabi Shashin e

Nobuyoshi Araki... Futatabi Shashin e (再び写真へ).

Evil Prints

Evil Prints - works by Tom Huck. "...Tom Huck was born in 1971 in Farmington, MO. He attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis in 1995. Since 1995, he has exhibited on a national and international level, and he has lectured widely across the U.S. about his work."

Mark Dean Veca: As Cold As They Come

Mark Dean Veca: As Cold As They Come at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York, NY. "...This exhibition includes over 20 new ink and acrylic paintings—the largest of which measures seven feet wide and depicts a hot rod monster reminiscent of Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth. Veca also presents Popeyeconography, a series featuring the beloved comic sailor Popeye, along with the full cast of accompanying characters from the classic strip. In addition to these subjects, Veca mines a variety of genres for his source material including renaissance art, contemporary art, advertising and film."

Brenda Ann Kenneally

Visura Magazine #5... Fast Eddie, aka, My Dad by Brenda Ann Kenneally. More... Works by Brenda Ann Kenneally at her personal site.

Moving In Your Sleep

The dB's... Moving In Your Sleep (.mp3 audio 04:36). From the album Stands for deciBels (1981, Albion ALB105).

Helmar Lerski (1871-1956) "Der Mensch mein Bruder" Retrospektive des Photographen mit 88 vintage prints

Helmar Lerski (1871-1956) "Der Mensch mein Bruder" Retrospektive des Photographen mit 88 vintage prints at Galerie Berinson in Berlin. "...Das Porträt erhält seine Bedeutung nicht durch die wirklichkeitsgetreue Oberflächen-Ähnlichkeit, sondern durch die auf dem Antlitz sich spiegelnden Bewegtheiten eines Innenlebens - also durch Sichtbarmachung des Unsichtbaren. Das statische Prinzip ist Stillstand und Tod."

Moriyama’s Magazine Work from the 60s and 70s

Japan Exposures... Moriyama’s Magazine Work from the 60s and 70s. "...We have created another in our series of video looks at recent photobooks, this time focusing on the two just-published collections of work that Daido Moriyama published in various photography magazines from 1965 to 1974. The two books together collect over 90 different series from a time when seemingly you could not pick up an issue of one of the two major photo monthlies of the time - Camera Mainichi and Asahi Camera - and not find a Moriyama photo essay in them."

2nd Biennial of World Images: Photoquai 2009

Lens Culture... 2nd Biennial of World Images: Photoquai 2009. "...Photoquai, the biennial festival of photography based in Paris, was founded in 2007. Dedicated to non-western photography, the festival aims to to raise the international profile of artists previously unexhibited or little-known in Europe. It also aims to foster cultural exchange - and the vibrant interchange of different world views."

Jan Fabre: La métamorphose de l'artiste (hommage à Jacques Mesrine)

Jan Fabre: La métamorphose de l'artiste (hommage à Jacques Mesrine) at Galerie Guy Bärtschi in Geneva.

Into The Night With Asia Argento And Joe Coleman

Into The Night With Asia Argento And Joe Coleman (Durch die Nacht mit #41). Asia and Joe ride the Cyclone rollercoaster at Coney Island and tour Joe's Odditorium.